Unemployment & Robots

Repetitive monotonous tasks. Assembly-lines. Robots. We’re used to the images (above left) at automobile plants all over the world – where people once stood and welded, lifted, assembled, the work is now handed over to highly accurate robotic arms, each with a specialized pre-programmed capacity. Creating, program and installing each unit is expensive, and so we don’t see these machines except in high volume, high-priced product manufacturing. Financial collapse and the bankruptcy of Chrysler and General Motors hastened union acceptance of the inevitability of these processes just to keep the industry alive. Oh yeah, there were some pretty highly skilled new jobs – robot design and maintenance – created along the way.

But the long line of sweatshop assembly-line workers that we believe represents the lot of any emerging country today – the dues that need to be paid by any nation that wants to move up the economic development chain – may soon be taken away if modern robotics moves to the next phase. What would happen, for example, if someone were to create an easily programmed, lightweight, affordable robot – capable of performing an infinite variety of tasks with relative ease – that could be picked up and dropped into a human assembly-line to work alongside its “fellow workers”? Would that technology deny hope to billions around the world seeking a better life? Since we cannot stop that progress, the answer may be yes. Further, the advancement of such capabilities – from factory to field – may pl ace more than a few marginal manufacturing jobs in the United States in the “soon-to-be-extinct” category, putting a premium on higher-level skills, just at moment we are curtailing our educational expenditures.

Well, robot fans, the “someday” may be today. A Swiss company, ABB, has invented a robot with all the assembly-line skills (“Frida,” pictured above right), able to work 24-hour shifts, as a single replacement for a human worker or… obviously… all of them. The April 19^th Spectrum.com reports: “FRIDA, which stands for Friendly Robot for Industrial Dual-arm Assembly (you knew an acronym was coming, didn't you?), is lightweight and compact -- a person can carry it using a handle that comes out at the top. To make it even safer, its motors have limited drive power and soft pads cover its body. The robot has 7-axis arms, each with a servo gripper for small-part handling. Inside the torso is a control system based on ABB's IRC5 industrial controller.”

Still slightly out of reach for most small manufacturers, “But it's easy to see a future in which robots like Frida drop in price and increase in intelligence to the point they actually do replace humans on production lines, since they can also work 24-hour shifts, won't go on strike, or cause other social problems.” FastCompany.com, April 19^th. And this headless critter isn’t likely to overstay on its coffee… er… oil… breaks either. But just think of the social disruption... and exactly whose future l amp will be dimmed.

I’m Peter Dekom, and it’s looking more and more as if can easily be replaced!